


ora sono pronto / now I'm ready

by exile_wrath



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Breakdancing and pole dancing, Episode 10 spoilers, M/M, Yuuri's insane stamina, banquet fic, narration by victor as he slides into "oh shit I'm in love" status
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 16:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8807233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exile_wrath/pseuds/exile_wrath
Summary: Victor is used to the banquet after the Grand Prix Final. Same faces, same questions about next season, nothing surprising. But this year, Katsuki Yuuri surprises him so much, that he thinks he may have fallen in love a little. Well, more than a little. Enough that Victor is willing to drop competitive skating to be his coach.    Throughout it all, Victor smiles and laughs and loses track of everything around them. The world is just him and this lovely man, dancing together. Victor Nikiforov is not the Grand Prix gold medallist, Katsuki Yuuri is not the Grand Prix finalist who had a horrible result. They are just two men dancing, chasing the heat found in each other’s bodies, chasing the happiness that comes when they’re in sync, so perfectly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look it's another episode 10 banquet fic. 
> 
> I was struck to write the the moment that I saw the ep, because I needed the details of what happened between all those wild pictures. + Some deliberations about Victor's thoughts between then and when he went to show up naked at Yu-Topia
> 
> What happened after the NHK Cup? Unfortunately Victor didn't get around to asking Chris.

Victor remembers him. It’s hard to forget someone who you offer a commemorative photo to- someone who looked at an offer most would have jumped at, and then instead walked away, like you had just shoved their pet dog in front of a car. Especially once you hear from Yuri that you’d been cold; that the person had been a fellow competitor and you’d treated him like an ordinary two-bit fan.

It will be even harder to to forget him like this, at the banquet now, flushed red and clearly hammered, tie shoved in his pocket and a bottle of _Brut_ champagne in one hand. Victor has a hand over his mouth, and it’s not just to hide his flabbergasted expression. He wonders if he’s staggering over to take out whatever grievance that had manifested earlier when Victor had offered a commemorative photo, but no. Rather, Katsuki Yuuri (the name Victor had remembered after Yuri’s unprecedented chiding) is there for _Yuri_.

His expression would be more intimidating, Victor thinks, if he wasn’t so drunk. But even then, with his words slurring and gaze unsteady, he manages to be legible enough to snag Yuri’s attention. “Hey youuuu- Jussst because I was sryin’ in the bathroom-” there’s a story there, Victor knows, judging by the way Yuri reels back in disgust, “doesn’t mean you can insult me like that, ‘kay? You’rrre... fourteen? You’re _tiny_. Tiny and _rude_.”

“I’m fifteen,” is what Yuri snaps, of course. Victor watches with faint fascination, hand sliding his phone from his inner pocket to open his camera app. “And ugh, you _reek_ , you piece of shit-”

“Shh- children shouldn’t sweaaar.”

“How much have you been drinking anyway?”

Katsuki Yuuri laughs in Yuri’s face, and then staggers backward in comedic fashion. “Thisss much!” he answers in drunken cheer before tipping back the bottle of champagne to his mouth. Miraculously, it doesn’t make a mess. Yuri opens his mouth to say something cutting, but Katsuki _smirks_ at him. “I drunk that much but I bet I can dance better than you~~” he sings, almost tauntingly, and Yuri is immediately filled with rage.

 _Did he sneak some alcohol?_ Victor wonders. It’s the only reason he can think for why Yuri would jump at such obvious bait so easily. Either that or he has serious beef with mister drunk grand prix finalist. Maybe it’s because they have the same first names?

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Yuri snaps, and he strides forth in front of Katsuki, mouth in a sneer, “Even if you were sober, you wouldn’t be able to beat me in a dance-off, you loser.”

There’s _definitely_ history there. Victor has to shake down Yuri for more info later. But at the moment, he’s content to watch. Normally, GPF banquets are... a chore that comes with winning. For the past several years he’s fielded the same lines from people

“What will you do next year?”

“What’s your next routine?”

“Congratulations on your gold!”

“You were so marvelous out there!”

Niceties and small talk that had gotten boring the second or third time around. But even though the banquets had rote themselves as dull events, Victor had attended anyways. As much as he would love to rest in his hotel room instead, watching romcoms or having sex with someone of choice, there are expectations with being the top of the skating world. So the clearing in the middle of the banquet hall, the shoving of tables aside to make room for a _dance battle_ between two skaters? If anyone tried to stop them, Victor isn’t sure that he won’t intercede.

Katsuki Yuuri, drunk off his feet with at least six glasses of champagne and a guzzle of Brut in his liver, has brought more entertainment to the banquet than that one year Chris called strippers.

The hall’s music shifts from the previous mellow melody to something faster, with drumbeats and an electric guitar and a singer yelling nonsense. Clearly, someone figured how to control the sound system. And as the music changes, Katsuki placed his bottle on a table and _moves_ , staggering walk turning into a slip as he drops to the floor, propping himself up with one hand and kicking in the air before spinning and shifting his weight to his other hand. “You’re young!” he yells as he flips to his feet and places his hand on his forehead, grinning at Yuri, “You’re just a kid, so I bet you can breakdance too, right right?”

Another spin on his feet, eyes not looking anywhere in particular as he spins and pulls his body and flips himself around in ways that Victor scolds himself for being too busy staring at Yuuri to properly take pictures of Yuri. Yuri himself is on his hands, then his and feet, dancing his heart out a few feet away from his challenger, never staying still.

This is something, Victor thinks as he watches Yuuri the elder, that belongs in the streets of New York City, where the artists that work with unconventional mediums like their bodies belong. Because _this_ movement is an art, just like figure skating, but breakdance does not belong in the middle of the GPF banquet hall - it should be somewhere more free, with open air and an audience that doesn’t wear self-important ballgowns and suits-

Yuuri spreads his arms and legs at _such_ an angle, Yuri leaping in the background similarly dramatically posed, and Victor feels something spark. Maybe it’s Mila’s expression on the other side of the competing pairs, or maybe it’s how Yuri is fighting to keep his default resting bitch face on, instead of showing his true excitement.

(Part of him acknowledges later that it was Yuuri’s laughter, bright and free and infectious with something light that sparks energy in the ballroom. A spark that ignites and sets the stagnant quiet small talk on fire, leaving only excited conversations and loud betting and something _alive_ in Victor’s heart.)

The two Yuri’s slide across the dancefloor as Yuri bears his focus on Katsuki, trying to move as the older man does, trying to mimic and be better than his competitor. It doesn’t work. Yuuri is lost in the music, drawing everyone in with step sequences that segue into hand-spins that are undoubtedly breakdance moves. Occasionally, when on his hands or when bending for a set of moves _just so,_ his shirt riding up to expose toned abs, musculature befitting a competitive ice skater.

Victor has seen such a sight before, many times - in the mirror, in his bed with someone else - but now it makes him want to reach out and _touch-_ he shakes his head, pulling himself together. He almost tried to join in, for a moment there. It doesn’t stop him from hopping closer once or twice to get closer pictures, though. To be fair, several other skaters are snapping photos too, so there’s not really anyone about to look at him strangely for breaking his usual persona.

Unfortunately in the end, Yuri, for all the energy and rage in expression that Victor feels would suit breakdance, ends up falling back on old ballet habits- a split leap here, a plie there - that make his dance look janking and awkward.

He tires out, soon enough, pulling off his tie and slumping over a table to catch his breath. Part of his shirt had come unbuttoned during the dance, but for all that Yuri is tired and probably nursing a grudge because Katsuki is _still_ dancing, Victor can feel it in him too-

Excitement. A spark.

He swallows, and grabs a glass of champagne to wet his throat, because it feels like there is static in the air, a something dry hanging around that soaks up the stagnation of small talk. Victor closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath to hold onto the bit of him that isn’t screaming, “Dance with him!”

It’s a mistake. Because when he opens his eyes, Yuuri is taking off his shirt and oh _god_ he’s only a few feet away he just has to take a few steps and feel for himself the _spark_ that’s there-

“Yuuuuri! You’re such the life of the party when you’re drunk!” Christophe Giacometti whirls into the center of attention in the same movement that he loosens the top two buttons of his shirt. “Dance with me too?”

Yuuri tilts his head to the side, hand grasping for his bottle of _Brut_. It’s not there, of course. Some poor waiter had snuck by the scene and confiscated it. His face scrunches in a terribly cute expression of dismay. “Yooou want to dance-off too?” the dismay is replaced with hope, and Victor can see something shine. “Breakdance? Ballet? Wait do... do you?” Yuuri doesn’t finish his sentence, coherence lost in the fog of alcohol.

Christophe seems to get it, though, and proceeds to to divest himself of shirt and tie _and_ pants. Victor can feel his eyebrows climbing at the bold nudity. Not that he should be talking; he’s been told off on multiple occasions for drunken stripping. “Non, non, Yuuri,” Christophe drags out the ‘u’. It makes Victor bite his lip before he tries to taste for himself what Katsuki Yuuri’s name would sound like on his tongue. “Remember that time after the NHK Cup?”

Victor adds Christophe to the list of names to shake down to learn a story later.

Yuuri takes about three long seconds to stare at Christophe before beaming... and then his face fell. “But Chris, they don’t have poles here,” he whines, and Victor is torn between wondering about the necessity of a pole for a dance battle or changing his camera mode to video. He settles on both.

The first is answered when Christophe shoots Yuuri a suggestive wink and sashays across the room. He directs attention to a metal rod spanning the distance between the ceiling and the floor, and with a smooth motion, grabbed it and spun on it, bare skin giving him friction to cling onto the metal. “The is a dance hall, dear. You wouldn’t know this because you weren’t at the GPF last year, but I remember this thing from last year,” he addresses Yuuri, “Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to do anything with it, though...” He winks at Victor.

Right. Last year Victor and Christophe had absconded the banquet early for blowjobs in the bathroom and more activities in Christophe's hotel room.

Not that he thinks about it, Christophe’s dance practice of choice to supplement the flexibility and strength that ice skating needs is... pole dancing.

Victor turns his head turns so hard he almost gives himself whiplash. Next to him, eyes sparkling, Katsuki Yuuri cheers about remembering fun times after the NHK Cup, and something along the lines of, “Okay Chris, you go first!” Victor swallows, unable to look away as Mister Drunk and Just Beat Yuri Plisetsky in a Dance Battle promptly divests himself of his own pants, looking as if he’s gearing up to join Christophe on the pole. Or work the pole after Chris. It’s one of them, but Victor suddenly can’t recall the details of their dance-off arrangement. Did they arrange anything?

He’s still staring, stares even harder when Yuuri bends to the ground ass in the air as he does some quick stretches, as if the dance battle with Yuri hadn’t warmed him up enough for doing something like _pole dancing_. Victor is 99% sure that he is ogling right now, and a quick look round the room comforts him that he’s not the only one. Thankfully, at least little Yuri is still wiped out and lying on a couch in the distance, far away from the scene that was getting definitely too X-rated for his teenage eyes.

“You should keep that on,” he manages to say as Yuuri reaches for the top button of his shirt, Victor’s sense of self-preservation kicking in. Yuuri doesn’t say anything, but his hand drops and he leaves his shirt on. He miles at Victor with enough brightness to leave Victor feeling slightly blinded, and steps toward the pole.

Chris, who has apparently just “been warming up”, according to what he’s saying to a giggling Mila, gives Yuuri a knowing look and gracefully flips off the pole. “I thought I was going to go first?”

“Last time you went first!” Yuuri says, and adds something else that Victor can’t make out under his drunken slur.

 _Last time?_ _This is not the first time?_ Victor _needs_ to shake down Christophe for the story. He starts towards Christophe, intending to get the details as soon as possible, but someone grabs his suit jacket. He turns around, annoyance clear on his face-

Only to meet Yuuri’s gaze, pupils blown wide with alcohol, legs wrapped around the pole, hand on Victor’s suit jacket, and back arched backwards so that his view of Victor is upside-down. For the record, Victor has to admit that this view of Katsuki Yuuri is _absolutely splendid_.

(Where was this man during the Men’s Short Program and the Free Skate earlier? Why the hell was _he_ not next to Victor on the podium instead of KK or JJ or whoever that bronze medallist was. Or even instead of _Chris_.)

“Victor?” The way he says his name makes Victor uncomfortably aware of suddenly, how much he’d like to hear his name from Katsuki’s mouth more. “Viiictooor.”

“Yes?” he gives Yuuri a tight, controlled smile, because right now he is blanking on what to do. He’s had drunken admirers before, he’s had plenty of people partially nude talking to him before. But, right now--

Yuuri smiles, this one full of teeth with an edge of ferocity. Victor swallows. “Please keep your eyes on me,” he says, sliding down the pole and releasing Victor’s jacket, swinging around with only one hand on the pole, other hand reaching towards Victor and his face wearing an expression that makes Victor’s hold on his sense of self-preservation weaken just the slightest.

“Of course,” Victor replies, stepping away right after. The GPF banquet is not the place to start reciprocating drunken flirtations unless you’re drunk too.

Regrettably, Victor isn’t drunk.

He retreats a safe distance away, standing next to Chris as he watches Yuuri work the pole. “He could kill me with those those thighs.” He realizes what he’s said a second too late, and Christophe shoots him a highly amused look, knocking back a flute of champagne.

“He can do a lot of things with those thighs,” Christophe says instead, and Victor glares at him. Why must his friends be such enablers at the most inconvenient of times. Christophe laughs at him. “I see you have questions.”

“I do.” Victor steals a glance at Yuuri, whose eyes are half closed, but is still putting one hell of a routine. “Is he really drunk? This is ridiculous.” When Victor is drunk, he’s prone to stripping and becoming a human barnacle on the person he’s most attracted to. But Katsuki Yuuri, when drunk, apparently has the stamina to start challenging people to dance battles. And he doesn’t even look tired! He looks drunk, but not tired.

Victor briefly wonders if that stamina extends to other activities as well, and immediately pitches the idea because he _likes_ his tenuous hold on sanity that he’s been maintaining, thank you very much.

He opens his mouth to start getting the Details from Christophe, but his friend is gone, mounting the pole now. Yuuri is off to the side, loudly searching for his discarded suit jacket. He finds it near where he and Yuri had their throw-down, and-

Honestly, why did he even think that Yuuri was going to put on his jacket at this point. Victor tries not to think too hard as he continues to record everything, including Yuuri stripping out of his dress shirt and running back to the pole. “... screw hand grip spring and ballerina! And amazing Spatchcock!” he thinks he hears Yuuri say to Chris. The words don’t make sense, but then again, tonight, nothing has been making sense it’s been enjoyable as hell. Yuuri is only wearing his tie and his briefs and his dress socks, now.

Why the _hell_ is Victor finding this attractive? Chris is wearing _less_ than Yuuri (unsurprising, as Chris has always set the highest bar for nudity at events even though no one ever challenges said nudity bar) but Mister Came Last Last Place at the GPF is the one Victor can’t keep his eyes off of.

Victor wonders, mournfully, if this is his midlife crisis.

Someone helpfully puts a champagne flute in his hand. “You look like you need it,” Mila giggles.

He tries not to think too hard as he downs the alcohol. “Thank you,” he says instead. He almost chokes, though, when he looks back at the pole and sees Yuuri with Christophe bent backwards over his knee. His brain stutters because Yuuri’s expression- his eyes are half-mast, his fingers curls around Christophe’s chest _just so_ , and Christophe himself is superbly balancing on his knee.

Never before in his life did Victor wish he knew how to pole dance until now. Never before in his life has he felt envious of Christophe Giacometti, holy shit.

They get down and change positions again, Yuuri grabbing a bottle and calling for Christophe to so something called a “‘jade split” with him. Victor just grabs another champagne flute, trying to distract himself and keep a hold on his sense of self-preservation that is currently fighting a losing battle to the sheer amount of eros that Katsuki Yuuri has.

Victor closes his eyes, and throws his thoughts somewhere else. The results of the Grand Prix - he’d won, Christophe had come second, JJ third. Katsuki Yuuri had been sixth, and had bombed both his short program and his free skate.

He remembers watching, now. And wincing with Yuuri every time he messed up a jump, which was to say, most of them. Both performances had been disastrous, and in the kiss and cry, Yuuri hadn’t even looked at the screen to see his results. He’d just... folded up. Quiet.

And then later had a confrontation with Yuri in the bathroom, or something like that - Victor really needed to get the story - and had felt so shitty that Victor’s offer of a commemorative photo must have hurt... _something_ in Yuuri, for him to walk away without a word, so crestfallen. He’d still been crestfallen when he’d walked into the banquet with Celestino earlier, and now here he was.

Doing another combination with Christophe, body parallel to the ground and gripping the pole with only his hands, Christophe arched on top of him, back parallel to the ground as well. It was a sight to behold, Victor thinks, and a sight to mourn. If _this_ Yuuri had been on the ice instead of the one that had messed up spectacularly, Victor would have definitely gotten to know him under more sober circumstances.

 _But these circumstances aren’t so horrible,_ Victor muses. He knocks back the last of his champagne and places the glass on a table, fixing his cufflinks as he approaches Yuuri and Christophe. They’re on the ground now, sweaty and holding onto each other, laughing. Yuuri is laughing something in a mishmash of Japanese and English that Christophe laughs along to, hand dangerously close to Yuuri’s nipples. Victor tries not to think too hard about the proximity, and picks up Yuuri’s discarded clothes.

“That was lovely,” he says, and it’s not just out of politeness. _That_ refers to every single damn thing that Katsuki has done ever since he finished his sixth glass of champagne, but no one needs to know that. “Yuuri, you should put on your clothes now.” Victor holds out his clothes.

Yuuri’s tie falls off his neck as he reaches for for his clothes, and he makes the cutest confused little noise before he deciding that the best place for his necktie is around his head instead. It looks like a very silly bandanna. He has his shirt on by the time Yuri materializes from wherever he had been resting, still looking very much disheveled. Thankfully, Chris has put his pants on, and Victor doesn’t have to worry about Yuri getting mentally scarred at such a young age.

And then Yuuri launches himself at Victor, Japanese pouring off his lips in excited babbling that Victor barely understands. His eyes are shining brightly, the haze of alcohol present mostly in his flushed cheeks. He’s staring at Victor, one hundred percent adoring and focused on _him_ , and his hips are grinding against Victor’s thigh, a motion that is definitely subconscious but feels purposeful enough that Victor feels his grip on sanity falter. 

If the situation had been more favourable, Yuuri less drunk, Victor would have propositioned him.

Victor is hypnotized. There’s nowhere to escape to bolster his sense of self preservation, and when Katsuki Yuuri jumps to hug him around his neck, yelling something that vaguely sounds like, “Be my coach, Victor~” he gives up. Any reservations about joining Yuuri in whatever it is he wants fly out the window with all the fucks he has left to give concerning current company.

Because- he feels it. That spark that Yuuri had brought, that Victor had denied- it’s a spark of surprise. Victor lives off of surprising people with his skating, and has barely been so pleasantly surprised before. But here Katsuki Yuuri is, who combo-hit him with so many surprises: doing poorly on on his short program and free skate when he _clearly_ has all the grace and talent and skill to give even _JJ_ a run for his money, refusing a commemorative photo when he had been staring so ardently at Victor, and then getting drunk off his ass and bringing dance to the party.

Gone are the polite little conversation groups that had been the norm. Now people are laughing together, probably at Christophe and Yuuri and Yuri’s performances, but still, it’s _something_. It’s a spark of something _new_ , something inspiring, something surprising-

And Victor has always loved surprises.

With all the surprises that Katsuki Yuuri has wrought, Victor thinks he might be a little in love with him too.

Yuuri is talking again, in understandable English now. “Be my coach, Victooor,” he says Victor’s name like a man eating honey for the first time, the syllables dripping off his tongue with what Victor knows is alcoholic slur, but at the moment just seems cute. “If I win this dance battle, coach meee!”

“I don’t want to,” Victor says, and he can hear the gasps from others, hear the “of course he was going to say no”, feel Yuri’s incredulity at the whole situation and Chris’ amused stare.

Yuuri’s face drops, heartbroken like when Victor had offered him that photo, and this time it hurts all the more, because Victor has seen the vibrancy and the allure that belongs on that face instead of heartbreak. “I don’t want to have a dance battle with you. I want to dance with you.”

Everyone gasps, and Yuuri’s eyes are shining again. They don’t hurt to look into anymore. “What kind of dance can you dance?” he asks, not letting go of Victor, rocking from side to side instead of rutting now. (A relief, because Victor was starting to have a hard time suppressing a potential boner) “Waltz? Ba- ballroom?”

“How about you put on your clothes properly first,” Victor says, and he can feel his face stretching with how wide his smile is. There’s a name to the spark that he’s feeling, a word that he hasn’t felt for awhile now outside of idle days with Makkachin or moments which he comes up with new novel choreography.

Ah, he knows.

 _I feel alive_.

Yuuri pouts, but starts putting on his clothes and shoes, albeit clumsily. Victor tugs the necktie off his head and loops it around Yuuri’s neck, under his lapels, and knots it, hands shaking with excitement. The action is ridiculously - dare he say - _domestic_ , and with the way that Yuuri smiles at appreciatively, pink dusting his cheeks, Victor can't help but blush as well. He tears himself from the feeling of comfort, because they're in a middle of a ballroom, and something selfish in him hisses _they don't deserve to see this._ Whether him, or Yuuri, he's not sure. So instead his mind goes through all the forms of dancing that he knows, which admittedly isn’t that many, and by the time Yuuri is mostly dressed (he refused to put on his jacket) he’s still clueless.

But Yuuri has surprised him this whole time, so he says, “I’ll dance whatever you dance, Yuuri.”

It’s so satisfying to finally say his name. It’s different from Yuri’s name, which is as short as the boy’s temper. The ‘u’ vowel fits right on Victor’s tongue, perfect for rolling seductively. “Yuuuuuri,”  he says again, just for the hell of it.

Yuuri laughs, and pulls Victor in the center, and they _dance_.

At first, they’re separate as Victor tries to go along with Yuuri’s moves. It starts off a bit jilted; they’re not dancing together. But at some point Yuuri does a little spin and brushes his fingertips against Victor’s hand, and things settle into place. The music is something fast-paced, like they music they play at the bullfights. Castanets and high-tempo violin.

He tells this to Yuuri at some point, and Yuuri laughs, raising his hands to mock bull horns. Victor whips off his jacket in response, and Yuuri runs into it, but catches Victor’s hands instead of passing by him, pulling him into a rhythm.

After that, it’s a bit of a blur. Yuuri leads, which would have been surprising considering the Victor is taller, but Yuuri is the one full of life, full of love, full of eros. Eros is what he possesses, Victor thinks, as they part and step in sync. Not entirely in sync, but there’s a flow to their motion now.

Victor looks up where Yuuri looks down, one watching the audience, tasting the air, the other drowning in music and finding a place in his. The way that Yuuri’s body moves _is_ music, Victor thinks, as they leap past each other. Like two lovers that are trying to meet, only to miss by just the slightest margin.

One arm raised, another arm low, as if they’re dancing with invisible partners. But Victor wants to dance _together_ , so he turns to Yuuri and bows to him- the opening move in a courtship, almost - and then they’re-

 _Together_ , bodies aligned. Yuuri leads, because he is the one that Victor will follow, because that is the nature of eros. A passionate love that will drive you to do mad things.

And like this, spinning together, Yuuri’s hand on his waist, a true smile on his lips and laughter and life and _love_ bubbling in Victor’s chest - like this, Victor thinks that he would do many a mad thing for Katsuki Yuuri.

Sometimes they’re so close. Yuuri’s face next to his, eyes focused on him and him alone, left hand parallel to Victor’s, right arm comfortably around his waist, holding Victor like he _fits_ there, by Yuuri’s side.

Sometimes they’re unbearably far, only touching at the very fingertips before Victor obeys the silent siren call and pulls himself closer to Yuuri again. But even when they’re apart, their bodies are mirrored, as if Yuuri can’t bear to be apart from him either.

Throughout it all, Victor smiles and laughs and loses track of everything around them. The world is just him and this lovely man, dancing together. Victor Nikiforov is not the Grand Prix gold medallist, Katsuki Yuuri is not the Grand Prix finalist who had a horrible result. They are just two men dancing, chasing the heat found in each other’s bodies, chasing the happiness that comes when they’re in sync, so perfectly.

Katsuki Yuuri may be seen by everyone here as a drunken idiot making a fool of himself, but if so, Victor has to be a bigger fool, for falling in love with him like this.

Their dance comes to an end, like all good things must. One of Yuuri’s hands caresses Victor’s face, the other solidly on the thigh of Victor’s outstretched leg. Victor is bent backwards, leaning on Yuuri’s hips, and they’re laughing together. Not at each other, but from sheer energy, infectious joy brought by the fusing of two hearts together.

“You win,” Victor wants to say, “I will be your coach.”

But the words die on his lips, because someone barrels through the crowd yelling Yuuri’s name. Yuuri’s grip on Victor slackens, and Victor manages to shift his weight before he falls when Yuuri is no longer by his side. Falls with no Yuuri to support him. 

“Yuuri! I’ve been looking for you!” the interloper cries, grabbing Yuuri by the shoulders. Victor recognizes him as the man Yuuri came to the banquet with — Coach Celestino Cialdini. “How much did you have to drink!?”

“Not enoughhh,” Yuuri says. He tries to shake himself free from Celestino, looks towards Victor, a questioning noise in his throat, all of his focus still on Victor.

Celestino looks at Victor, and goes a bit pale. “I’m sorry if he’s made a nuisance of himself,” he says quickly.”Yuuri is an... enthusiastic drunk. No harm done, I hope.”

“None at all,” Victor wants to say, but then Yakov is next to him, staring at him with warning in his eyes, and he falters. But still, he manages to say, “Not at all. He was lovely.”

“You’re lovelier,” Yuuri says.

Silence. Victor doesn’t know whether his flush is because of the compliment or because of the champagne. “You were the one that charmed everyone, my dear,” he replies, reflexively winking at Yuuri. 

“You were the only one I wanted to charm.” Victor stills, remembering the words before Yuuri’s pole dance, an order for Victor to watch him, him alone, and this time he can to nothing to stop his blush.

Yakov’s fingers twitch, and Celestino looks on the border of a panic attack, and Victor doesn’t know how to tell Yuuri “yes” without alerting Yakov that Yuuri had radically changed all of Victor’s plans for the future. So he lunges forward and grabs Yuuri’s shoulders and puts his mouth to Yuuri’s ear. “Yuuurrrri,” he drags out the syllables, one last taste of eros’ true name, “What we agreed - send me a message, any message, and I will go to you. You won this dance.” _And me_.

* * *

In the end, it takes the combined efforts of Celestino and Yakov to pry them apart. Yakov asks multiple times if Victor is drunk, Yuri is looking at him like he’s an alien, and Chris just gives him a knowing wink. Yuuri whines pitifully as his own coach drags him away, like being apart from Victor is physically painful.

The way that his hand is outtretched, reaching desperately to Victor — it rips a piece of Victor’s heart away. A scrap of his heart and emotions fly unwittingly to Yuuri, beyond Victor's control, and stays with him.

Even if Yuuri himself doesn’t know how much of Victor's heart he's grasping now.

* * *

The next morning, he goes through interviews wondering about Yuuri. He packs and unpacks and repacks and rearranges his luggage wondering whether they’ll leave together - Victor can change his flight to go to wherever Yuuri is going. Or no, he’ll fly to St. Petersburg and pick up Makkachin so they can go together. Or better yet, Yuuri will come with him to pick up Makkachin, and they can laze in St. Petersburg for a few days before the Japanese Nationals, and Victor can take Yuuri around and show him the sights.

He wonders how long it will be for them to dance together again, to move and think alike and laugh together. How long will it be for Victor to grasp that spark of life that Yuuri has again?

Yuuri does not send Victor any message.

Not when he flies back to Detroit with his coach, not when he goes to the Japanese Nationals and fails.

Not when Victor wins gold as Russian Nationals, wins gold at the European Championships.

Katsuki Yuuri disappears from the figure skating community, cutting off his contract with his coach, and doesn’t send Victor anything.

It’s April, and Victor wins the World Championships in Yoyogi, wins gold by taking the last spark of life he had from Yuuri’s beautiful courtship and throwing it into Stammi Vicino. He looks around restlessly as interviewers ask him what he plans for next season. Ideally, he’d say, “I mean to take the season off to coach Katsuki Yuuri,” but he cannot say that because Yuuri has sent him nothing.

Does Yuuri not want him anymore?

* * *

A week later in his St. Petersburg apartment, he holds Makkachin to warm himself; cold not because Russia is always cold and he’s not wearing anything for warmth, but because the spark has left him entirely.

He thinks about eros, about the way Yuuri and he had danced. He’s already commissioned a song to fit the image of another dance that formed in his head around those memories. Fast-paced, with castanets and high-tempo violins and all the energy of eros. A dance for the ice, perfect for a short program for next season... if he wants to skate the next season.

Yuuri hasn’t sent him anything, and he wonders if it was a one-sided connection all along.

So he commissions a song about agape, about an unrequited love. With gentle singing and somber violins, something that sounds innocent and pure and aching. Aches just as he does. Was he a fool that mistook something that was nothing for love? No, he’s had relationships before. Victor has dated before and has had one night stands before, and can tell the difference between wanting an emotional connection with someone and wanting to have sex with them.

Yuuri hadn’t made him want an emotional connection. With Yuuri, there had already been one. They had just been two men, dancing the night away. Victor had been a person. Not a lauded skater, not a lusted-after idol, not a competitor. He’d found Victor the person hiding underneath all those personas during that dance with Yuuri.

If Yuuri sends him nothing... if it turns out that Yuuri doesn’t want him after all, what will Victor do? Will he skate to Eros, to remind Yuuri of the passion they had shared, of the laughter and the dancing? Or will he skate to Agape, to let go of a love that received no response. No call from Yuuri. No email, or text, or social media post.

It’s a hard decision.

He decides to sleep on it.

* * *

 When he wakes up the next morning, it’s to way too many twitter and instagram notifications. Practically all of them are about the same topic: a youtube link that had apparently gone viral while he was asleep.

Victor sits on his couch cuddling Makkachin as he loads the video, and his face stiffens in shock at the title. _Yuuri Katsuki Tries to Skate to Victor Nikiforov’s “Stay Close to Me”_.

He watches the video, watches the quads Victor had done become triples under Yuuri’s less technically skilled skating. Watches Yuuri’s expression, the way his arms and his step sequence move like Victor had, but with an added dimension that Victor knows is uniquely Katsuki Yuuri. It doesn’t detract from the performance, it gives it new flavour.

Yuuri has all the life and love Victor doesn’t have, has life and love that he wouldn’t mind sharing with Victor, judging by their dance at the banquet.

He wants Victor to share them with him, judging by the way he skates Victor’s own performance of longing, of a plea to _stand by his side and never leave._

Victor gently sets Makkachin aside and stands up, relying on his peripheral vision to not bump into anything as he replays the video. He sets it up on repeat on his laptop to display on his TV while he starts packing. The song filters throughout his apartment as he prepares to leave.

This is it. This is Yuuri’s message to call him. And just as he’d promised, Victor will go.

He wonders what took Yuuri so long to call him. Maybe to surprise him? It makes sense, after all. Calling to Victor with Victor’s own routine about longing for love is something that Victor wouldn’t have expected. Maybe he wanted to impress Victor with his message? Victor would have went to him even if Yuuri had sent him a single message with the word, “Come.” He smiles faintly as he starts sorting through his wardrobe, trying to figure out which of his favorite clothes he would bring.

Now he won’t have to deliberate over which short program to do for the Grand Prix next season. _Eros_ is perfect for Yuuri, after all, perfect for the man that had stolen his heart through beautiful dance.

So... how should he respond to Yuuri’s call? He lived at a hot spring inn, apparently. Plenty of opportunity for a dramatic reunion there. Nothing less for the man who awed him with breakdance and pole dancing and a paso doble.

 _Partiamo insieme/Let’s leave together_ _  
_ _Ora sono pronto/Now I’m ready_

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very welcome. I'm planning on writing more YoI fic in the future, so I hope you liked this!
> 
> I can be found on tumblr @exile-wrath
> 
> Also for the record there was an article about actual pole dancers reacting to the ep 10 ED and from that I found out the names of the moves that Christophe and Yuuri do.


End file.
